Thoughts on renting in Stratford for DS 21?

[pansiesareyellow]

Wasn’t sure where to post this…..
Looking for a rental for DS for a year. The prices are ridiculous and we’ve been looking for about a month. We’ve found something one street over from Romford Road and The Grove area. It’s a 10 minute walk to Westfield and is on the Elizabeth Line which would be great for him. Just wondered if anyone had any experience of this area? He’s starting his first job and will be walking around with a company laptop in a briefcase.

I’ve read mixed reviews of the area including to just “stay away” 😳

Romford is a better area (more families) also with Elizabeth line.

Stratford has a rough appeal and has been in the news for unfortunate reasons. Stratford is expensive because the station has interchange of 4-5 different tubes / trains. So very well connected. But it’s very busy and rough.

Where is his work based in?

I went to the new v&a there recently. Lots of new builds. There are people walking all over London with laptops. Why is it particularly rough. Lots of new developments.

@deirdrerasheed the new V&A is the other side of Stratford, the old Olympic Park. DD has rented there and it was well connected, had good facilities and fairly safe. I would live there but not the other side of Stratford that the OP is talking about.

Near Regent St

This. He’d be better looking at the former Olympic Village (so north of Westfield) if that’s where he wants to be based. Or over on Fish Island. The Grove/Romford Road area is very central but the rougher part of Stratford near the Stratford Centre. The difference between Westfield and the Stratford Centre is like night and day. I worked nearby for 3 months just a couple of years ago so walked daily from Stratford station over towards Romford Road and on to West Ham Lane. Well apart from the morning when someone was stabbed to death outside McDonalds on Romford Road just near The Grove so the whole area was sealed off. There were 2 other stabbings at the same time but only 1 poor kid died. Even as someone who’s lived in east London for many years, Stratford is somewhere that I keep my guard up. It attracts trouble.

Dc lives nearby and loves it. Very well connected to other areas of London and mainline stations. Westfield great for cinema as well as shopping, and Olympic Park for green space plus local parks. Lizzy line to Bond Street would work for Regent Street.

A briefcase - surely you mean a rucksack? Or are you Mrs Rees-Mogg?

Then why not explore North London. Something on Northern or Victoria line ?

There are plenty of young commuters in that area, most use backpacks.

😂 Well I’m old, so that’s what I call the backpack/sort of messenger bag thing he has!!

Thanks everyone - this has made up our minds not to see this property and look elsewhere.

@pansiesareyellow Happy to ‘review’ any other possible locations for you if you/he needs help/opinions from Londoners?

E1 might be a good but affordable option for him as there’s the Liz line at Whitechapel plus numerous other tube lines, and on a tube strike day it is actually walkable to Regent St from there. Also lots of young people living in the area so it’s very lively.

That is so kind, thank you…I only really know Ealing, Acton, Brentford, Richmond etc from my time in London in my twenties. But am sure they’ve changed too…I’ll look at E1, thanks!

Hello @HundredMilesAnHour - not sure if you will see this - but do you have any thoughts on Hanwell or West Ealing? My son went to look at a property but said he didn’t feel that safe, he thought there were a lot of “weird” people hanging around.

I always thought Ealing was pretty safe but he is usually very relaxed about stuff like this, having travelled abroad on his own too. But it freaked him out enough to actually decide not to rent the room. Again, google gives mixed reviews.

So if anyone else has any thoughts on this area, I’d be grateful!

@pansiesareyellow I don’t really know Hanwell (looked at houses there for a friend many many years ago but that’s it) but one of my oldest friends lived in West Ealing for a good 10 years or so (before moving to Chiswick). She was in one of the streets (Drayton Avenue) quite close to West Ealing station and that was fine. Actually very middle class / suburban with the nearest supermarket being Waitrose. I stayed there a lot and she never had any problems with crime or anything at all actually.

These stabbings are always gang related though. You're not going to get stabbed as someone walking round any bit of London if you're not part of a gang.

Bluntly as a young man he’s probably going to be safer than a young woman. As a PP said, almost all stabbings are gang related. They don’t stab random passers by. The worst risk he faces is probably getting his phone nicked.

More broadly, why isn’t he flat-sharing? The number of 21 year-olds who rent their own place in London these days is vanishingly small. He’ll be able to live in a much nicer area with more spare cash to enjoy life if he rents a room rather than a whole flat.

DP lives there and I live down the road.

It’s fine. As long as he doesn’t join an Albanian drug gang he’ll be sound. If anything is going to happen it will be in Regents Street, that’s where people will nick your phone out your hand.

He is looking for a flat share. We’ve been on spareroom.com for the last month - all the good ones go so quickly, it’s really hard to get a viewing for anything half decent. There are some really nice ones, but most are sharing a bathroom between 5 rooms which is ridiculous if they all need to get ready for work in the morning!

This one was on the other side on one of the streets of Uxbridge Avenue, right next to Hanwell Cemetery….does anyone else know this area?